Bump and Grind (oh, the size of my behind!)

I've never really been much of a dancer. When I was growing up, ballet was an upper-middle-class rite of passage for little girls (and mothers who knew they MUST get the right dance school or Catriona/Lily/Olivia wouldn't be asked to the right parties where at least two little angels would show up in the same Laura Ashley taffeta party frock), and as most rites of passage are, it was utterly hellish. At 5, my teacher was telling me to "hold in my stomach", which meant I didn't breathe for one entire class and went a really nasty shade of blue. And people wonder from whence my neuroses spring. At six, when all the other little girls were pretending to be swans or bunnies or butterflies for a "dance like an animal" task, I chose to be a donkey, complete with galloping, hair-tossing and some braying (accidental). At seven, I got the lowest mark in the class for my ballet exam. At eight, I quit.

In many ways, Scottish Country Dancing is much more me; I've been doing it since I was two on family holidays to Crieff Hydro (again, in Laura Ashley taffeta), and at least at ceilidhs, it is less about grace and perfection and more about having a galumphing good time. However, "social dancing" at school somehow managed to scupper this also; not only was it not cool to try but unless you were very popular or had a lot of friends of the opposite sex, it basically turned into two periods of humiliating rejection as your friends were asked to dance and even the one nerd you had managed to blackmail into asking you at lunch the previous day tried desperately to avoid your line of sight until you were the only two left and the gym mistress forced you together on pain of laps and press-ups.

It was, therefore, with some trepidation that I signed up to a course of burlesque classes last month (with a tiny bit of encouragement from ACS!).

The only guidance I was given by the dance school was "arrive early in loose clothing and with small heels"; to that list I added "have a glass of wine because the thought of both dancing and acting sexily in front of a mirror scares me cackless". However, the first thing I noticed was that there were people of all ages and sizes there, and many were in full makeup and cute outfits, rather showing me up in my uncharacteristic tinted moisturiser and joggers. The first week, we were emphatically told by our teacher, Gypsy Charms (who I later found out has a PhD in burlesque and stripping; you couldn't make my life up) that burlesque is NOT a dance form, it is a PERFORMANCE ART.... and then we proceeded to dance for an hour. We learned a traditional basic and then a modern, slightly Pussycat Dolls routine, complete with bottom-thrusting and hip wiggling and bump 'n' grind (which is basically a series of swivels and hooha thrusts), all while making the sort of facial expressions usually seen in a Carry On film circa 1972. I looked utterly ridonkulous, I missed some of the moves..... and I left feeling like the sexiest thing on earth. Christina Hendricks ain't got nothing on me.

This week we learned how to sexily remove a glove while shimmying our thang (or however many thangs we may have). The shimmying terrified me; while I have a natural sense of rhythm, nothing ever exactly moves when I want it to. My chest is usually at least half a bar behind - I move left, it goes right, I move right, it remains left, we stop to pose and I am still jiggling like a blancmange in shock. However again, no matter how stupid I looked in the mirror, I felt great. Some of the poses made me look like a geriatric with a bladder problem, others like my behind look the size of Arthur's Seat, and my face is still half blow-up doll, half terrified rabbit, but I'm improving. I'm walking differently, flirting more, and next time it is cold, watch out for my attempt to take off my cashmere gloves with my teeth before I run them all over my body.......

Fried Egg Rolls and Old Men in Shorts, or Why I Hate the Gym

Let's face it, very few people actually like going to the gym. There are people who claim they enjoy the "rush", the "buzz", the "routine", the "chance to ogle fit men in tight shorts". These people are liars. Plenty of people enjoy exercising, I myself used to kill it on the hockey field (literally. I once kicked a girl in the face. Acidentally, you understand, and her parents could totally afford the reconstructive surgery she may have needed). However, nobody likes the gym.

The usual reasons for disliking the gym are things like "it's BOOOORING" or "it's too faaaaar awaaaaay" or "I have to go rather than watch Made in Chelsea or have a social life" or "I've been a gym goer for three months now and don't seem to be any fitter" (reaches for cream cake). While all these things are to an extent true, I have decided to make a list of all the things specifically I hate about going.

1) I cannot complain that my gym is too far away; it is about 10 minutes walking at my snail-on-a-glacier speed, so going really isn't an issue. What is, however, is that on my way I have to pass a cafe called Breakfast, Brunch and Lunch which puts blackboard signs on both sides of the road so there is no ecape. Their main crime? Advertising the Filled Roll of the Day which is inevitably either Fried Egg, Fried Bacon or Fried Black Pudding (and one memorable day, all three). I love all three. I love them with a passion that is intense and bordering on the insane. Therefore you can understand why walking past such signs makes me weep and die inside.

2) Girly as it sounds, my hair. I struggle, struggle with my hair. It is thick and oddly poodle-like and while people often compliment its "mirror shine" or "glossy thickness", that only happens when I have spent many hours with hairdryer, Babyliss Big Hair, GHDs and the whole Percy & Reed haircare collection. You can imagine, then, that when I have a good hair day, it is a good day indeed. However, the gym destroys my hair. The combination of sweat, humidity and furious movement renders me flat on top and giant at the sides; sort of the ultimate hat hair hell but without a hat. I actually have to schedule gym visits for when I know my hair will look like crap (usually Day Three Hair when it could grease a wok), and that is very, very frustrating.

3) The Weights Room. I would very much like to lose weight all over and tone up completely, but one area I need to work on is my arms. They are overly flabby at the top and look something out of the Family Guy episode featuring Star Jones when her upper arms become wings and she takes off (I will try to find a link). Therefore I really wanted to do some weight work at the gym, to end up with lovely slim arms and better upper body strength. However, the weights section is always filled with men. Big, muscly, sweaty, scary men who bench press (what does that even mean)? 1000lbs easily and make screamy grunting noises while they use the rowing machines and judge me when I don't know how to use the equipment. And I can't ask any of them about how to use it because from their super-strength they all look like steroids have melted their brains anyway.

4) The creepy old men. So I was having a drink of water and a sit down (read - downing pints and collapsing with the effort) after my cycle and looked up to see a great pair of legs. And then an excellent bottom. Toned back. Quite tanned. And then.... a head of white hair and a giant bushy beard. Swear to God, the guy was about 70. I did not feel well at all after that, and he is not the only one; they are everywhere. I have nothing against the elderly exercising, it is very impressive. I just don't like them sneak-attacking me when I am low on fluids and therefore vulnerable.....

The Good-Restaurant-Fattening-Food Guide

OK, so I said in my last post that I would be continuing with the acronyms, but I'm going to leave that a couple of days and deal with the weekend, as it was the first time I'd been properly socialising over a protracted period.

So I spent Friday evening-Sunday morning away from the city on a visit to A Certain Someone, who I hadn't seen for weeks and weeks; I tried to be really good last week because I wanted to be able to eat and drink in relative freedom, at least a little bit! Also he is super-healthy and in ridiculously good shape so I don't want to let the side down, as he knows I am points-counting. We ate out three times, all of which were lovely, but not the healthiest thing ever:

Meal One - Mexican. We said no to starters, had glasses of wine rather than a bottle, and I ordered a salad. Brilliant, I thought; I won't go over my points and can have another glass of wine later, or perhaps some of ACS's Bucket of Bones (there was, like, a whole cow on that plate). However, there is a reason that Mexico is not known for its salad. This thing was like an amateur archaeologist's wet dream - that was how much I had to forage for the lettuce. There was half a block of cheese, tortilla chips, beef strips in cajun dressing, olives, guacamole, sour cream.... It was literally a mountain. I did not finish it all. Super-tasty though.

Meal Two - Country Pub. After several hours delivering leaflets for a Conservative council candidate (vote early, vote often, vote Tory!), myself along with ACS and some other volunteers went to a local pub for lunch. Breakfast was a fuzzy-head-hungover five grapes, and the ward we were flyering was not flat, so I plumped (lol) for fish and chips, though I did choose the small portion with peas. It was nom. I did not have all the chips. Somehow the tartare sauce disappeared from my plate though I have no memory of consuming it.... Not the healthiest option, but a ton of peas and the fact I wasn't at all hungry til dinner made it a winner. Sort of.

Meal Three - Indian. We drove a few towns over in the evening to go to the M&S for the Dine In For Two deal; their Count On Us range has ProPoints marked on the back for ease, it is so soooper. However, we drive past restaurant after restaurant aaaaand M&S is shut, so on his recommendation, we go to a great curry place. Again, no starter and I went easy on the poppadoms (OMG SUCH A CHALLENGE I used to eat a packet of eight from Tesco in one sitting. Eurgh), though perhaps a creamy korma wasn't the best plan. Along with two glasses of looovely pinot grigio. And another one at the pub. And some cava back at his house. And alcohol really messes with fat-burning. Gah.

On the whole, not my best. However, I managed not to use all my weekly points, got a decent amount of exercise and began to learn not to beat myself up over any little slip-ups as long as I have enough fruit, veg, water and exercise generally.

So, next, I must continue my acronyms, post about goals met so far and deal with the fact that however well I seem to be doing, it's an epic struggle and a half a lot of the time; cake is calling my name......

I tried to think of something which rhymes with "acronym" and all I came up with was "slim". Appropriate....

When I started blogging I knew very little about the process other than type in the nice white box, press the big orange or blue buttons to post or save and maybe pick out a nice background, which in this case is reminiscent of the very nice and VERY expensive Laura Ashley wallpaper my parents decorated my room with when I was 8 or 9 and that at the time I hated so much I tried to rip down. Honestly, the foolishness of youth. However, one thing that was always very clear was that I cannot name anyone on here, for both their sake and mine *coughnolawsuitspleasecough*. Therefore I've decided to give everyone super-fun nicknames that will shorten to acronyms! Yay super-fun! So, the most frequently mentioned people in the future are as follows:

PEOPLE I KNOW
-------------------

HamFace (HM) - my former flatmate, one of my closest friends. We have a hilariously dysfunctional relationship and our two years cohabitation was like living in a sitcom.

The Trifle Set (TS) - a group of friends I met during my first degree; we act like life ended in the early 1930s and have 10 course dinners with accompanying wine while wearing black tie a lot. Eating and drinking with them now is a challenge.

Gilbert & Sullivan (G&S) - another group of friends bound up in an operetta society. Again, eating and drinking a lot, or singing about eating and drinking a lot.

A Certain Someone (ACS) - someone I've been seeing for a while; he's a little bit older and lovely as well as being super-healthy and very encouraging! Also excellent cook.

Ace Gang (AG) - a group of friends from school who have been very encouraging about this; we are all trying to be healthy together and share tips.

Douchebags (DB) - men I have been involved with who have dicked me around, sometimes on account of the way I look. What a shock you will all get one day.

Swiss Family Mad (SFM) - my immediate family. My mother is also on a health kick so we have competition going on.....

This post was also going to feature People I Don't Know But Still Refer To, but there is only so much information even an endorphin-pumped brain can take. So chew this 30 times and digest slowly before the next installment tomorrow!

Girls Who Wear Makeup At The Gym

I love makeup. I spent a stupid amount of money on makeup. I watch a ridiculous number of YouTube videos about makeup. My day is not complete unless I have applied makeup. However, there is one place where I would never EVER wear makeup.

The gym.

When I go to the gym, I wear an oversized t-shirt almost destroyed by The Killer Washing Machine That Ate All My Tights, jogging bottoms I have had since school that have holes at the thighs due to friction (fuck you, man-made fibres), super-old trainers that cut off my circulation if I tie them too tight and a hoodie from a G&S production last year that I stole from my ex-flatmate (which I MUST give back because he's here this evening....). I do not wash my hair. I do not always shower. And I certainly do not put on makeup. In short, I am a complete mess, and I expect others to be the same.

I don't even mind going out like this in public, a) because it's once every two days or so and b) because the walk to the gym is like Phys Ed Mile; pretty much everyone you pass is in sports gear, jogging or carrying a bag that says I Exercise And Am Therefore Better Than You (miiiight be making that last one up). However, other people don't seem to share my secret enjoyment of feeling the wind, or the air conditioning, on bare skin; this can surely be the only explanation for the strangest of phenomenons - Girls Who Wear Makeup At The Gym.

Exercise is hot and sweaty and no-one looks their best during it, but really, adding cakey foundation and neon eyeshadow and sticky lipgloss to the mix won't make one look better, it simply takes the look to a whole new level of "Holy crap, paper bag!". I have watched girls applying mascara in the changing room mirrors only to see them ten minutes later with the very same running down their cheeks, even girls who take their compacts with them to check for shine half an hour into a 20km cycle. But the most confusing are the girls who arrive back to the changing rooms with their makeup still intact. No shine, no mess, no running, no pores the size of craters filled with foundation goo, nothing.

So, Girls Who Wear Makeup At The Gym, I ask you...... WHAT IS YOUR SECRET AND HOW DO I GET SOME.

Wine, Women and Song (without the Women or the Song)

So after starting this blog to boast about such feats of bravery as walking down some stairs and going to the shops without makeup, recent events have inspired me to take a new direction and write about my attempts to lose weight. I decided this partly because the more people that know what I'm doing, the less likely I am to fall off the wagon for fear of the massive guilt trip that will follow, but mainly because my last post got such an overwhelmingly positive response that it made me want to continue. You like me, you really like me!

Anyway, since my last outpouring, I have not been to the gym as I was in St Andrews, but I have been walking a lot, attempting sit-ups (they BURN) and doing bicep crunches with soup cans. I look like a complete tard but every little helps! However, gym tomorrow again. My mother is also exercising back at home so we are going to become gym buddies when I am back in a couple of weeks, which means that I want to be in decent shape in order to best her, because I am so competitive that beating anyone at anything makes me SO HAPPY (ask my ex-flatmate about Scrabble sometime). Also she is much fitter than I am already, much as it pains me to say it. It also means that I get to use all the swanky-pants gym equipment at her swanky-pants gym where all the millionaires hang out (allegedly), so I may have to invest in some workout gear as I doubt my too-tight fraying M&Co sweatpants and oversized T-shirt with neon writing and a Vote Tory slogan will cut it somehow.....

However since the last post there have been a couple of obstacles: eating and drinking out. Thursday I went out to a bi-weekly black tie event where there be drinking and speeches and drinking and gown-wearing and yet more drinking. Alcohol being one of the main reasons I am the size I am, and also one of the main ways I enjoy myself, I was a tad worried about this. However, by sipping slowly and having water or Diet Coke (I love Diet Coke) I managed to get mildly tipsy (cough) on only one large and one small glass of wine, a couple of sips of port and a half-glass of something a friend didn't want, which still kept me under my points allowance for the evening. It sounds a lot and really it is, but considering I would average a bottle and a half on these nights out, and I was out for almost six hours, quite proud!

Next time - the wonderful world of eating out with someone who wants three courses. It's much more interesting that it sounds (cough). xxx

P.S. To those who have messaged, FBed or commented about my last post - thank you, your support means everything and I feel very lucky! OK, sappy bit over, and signing off.

I am gym-goer, hear me roar

OK, so I haven't blogged for a while, though I have been doing one thing every day that scares me (a few have literally brought me out in hives of fear, you honestly have no idea). While I plan to play catch-up in the next couple of days with tales of spiders, of unwritten speeches ad-libbed while hammered and of mice and me, today's post is just because I need to get something off my rather ample chest. This week I joined WeightWatchers and the gym and started on the long journey back to liking myself and it is frankly scaring me to death.

I got scared when I realised how much money I was spending on junk. When I counted the units of alcohol I was drinking each day, each week, each month and how many calories were contained within. When I looked in the mirror and saw how bad my skin was, how large my bottom was, how many chins I had developed. When I went shopping and started to automatically pick up size eighteens. When even the man I'm seeing told me perhaps I should think about dropping a few pounds. When I couldn't climb my stairs without wanting to die. When I looked at pictures of myself in 3rd year on a choir trip and thought, good God, I was beautiful and I didn't realise. How did it come to this?

My old reaction would be do an online order for Domino's (can't call them up and have to tell them I want junk food; this is something that for me has always required as little human contact as possible), buy a bottle of wine from the corner shop where I'm sure the employees think I have A Problem, dig out my hidden chocolate, watch tv and cry about being fat and unloveable and always feeling like shit. Well, fuck that. No more. I refuse to be the fat girl cliche who ends up settling in romance, in career, in life. I deserve better and I'm making it (very slowly, painfully bloody slowly) happen.

This isn't for all the men who have hooked up with me but want too keep it on the "down-low" because they "can't be seen with me in public". This isn't for all the dinner party jokes and nicknames and one particularly vile claim that "if anyone ever slept with her, they'd have a problem finding her lady parts under all the rolls" (you know who you are and you make me sick). This isn't for all the directors who have passed me over because I didn't "look right" for a role. This isn't for all my friends who even unwittingly backhandedly compliment me. This isn't for the boy I've known since childhood who I saw last Christmas and who shoved his leftovers at me and said "you look like you like pie". This isn't even for my family, who have gently or not tried to wake me up to the fact that being this way isn't healthy.

This is for me. Just me.